


Waiting For a Hero

by Huehxolotl



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: But I won't, Gen, Lyse and Hien are best bros, MSQ may have forgotten them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 04:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18652513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huehxolotl/pseuds/Huehxolotl
Summary: MSQ spoilers~Hien broods, and Lyse makes a declaration, as she is wont to do.





	Waiting For a Hero

**Author's Note:**

> If MSQ won't give my children love, then I will have to do it myself! But with a slight role-reversal where Hien is the one shaken and a bit unsure of himself, while Lyse is ready to take on the world.
> 
> Quickly written and VERY lightly edited. You have been warned~

When he wakes, it’s to the pale stones of Ala Mhigan architecture. A building, he determines. Judging by the smell of medicinal herbs and potions and the quality of the architecture, it is a medical building near the palace. The air is dry in a way that Doma has never experienced, but he finds it oddly comforting. After all, a hot room with little air circulation is better than the smoke-filled and acrid battlefield that he last remembers falling upon.

Though he supposes he should be alarmed that his injuries were grievous enough to require his removal from the battlefield. How he was found and rescued is also a question he needs an answer to. Eventually.

Closing his eyes, he takes several deep breaths, collecting his thoughts and memories.

Zenos - _so very much alive but_ wrong _, overwhelming strength, testing them, testing_ himself _, magic, which is entirely unfair_ -

Yugiri - _fought bravely, taken down, such drive and strength yet it wasn’t enough_ -

Lyse - _“No! What you have you done?” fury, strength that awes him, a shattered mask_ -

He rolls his head to the right. Lyse is on the bed next to his, and Yugiri is beyond her. For a brief moment, he imagines the reactions of his advisers back home if they were to know that not only was he not given a private room, he shares it with two unmarried women. Oh, the fits they would have. Yugiri they would give a pass, if only because she is his bodyguard, but Lyse? His advisors -of noble blood and old age- would be calling for her to become his concubine or be declared forever shamed.

Lyse, he imagines, would have some choice words and a good few punches for his advisers. Now  _that_ is an image he will keep close to his heart when the old men get too testy.

His amusement does not last long in the face of his injured friend. He recalls vividly his fear when he was bound, his horror when Lyse took his place without hesitation. It took all they had to free her -and few times has he seen Yugiri so desperate, but he does not blame her in the least- yet the battle had not finished. Further, they pushed themselves. Further, for as long as possible, hoping - _praying_ \- that the Warrior of Light would save them.

The door opens, startling him from his memories.

“Lord Hien! You’re awake!” a young Gridanian healer exclaims. The yellow uniform is harsh to his eyes, and he strains to hide a wince. Behind him, a shinobi peeks into the room.

He shakes his head, ordering her to remain at guard. There is no urgency about her manner, and their continued existence is proof that their vaunted hero arrived in time to save them. He doesn’t imagine Zenos, or whoever wears his body, is the merciful kind. “My friends,” he says, voice hoarse from pain and dehydration.

“Your retainer, uh, shinobi? Miss Yugiri will require rest, but her injuries are hardly severe. Minor cuts, and some nasty bruises. Commander Hext…” he trails off and glances at Lyse with a concerned frown. “She sustained the most damage. She will live, though she will be kept from the field for a time.”

He sighs heavily, remembering the burst of magic that the fake-Zenos had released. “As expected. Zenos certainly wasn’t pleased when she broke through his mask with a single punch.”

The healer’s eyes widen, curiosity brimming from his posture, but collects himself reluctantly, reciting his injuries and the medicines he will need to take for the next sennight. The battlefield, he is told in no uncertain terms, is barred from him. From the way the healer’s spine straightens and his lips scowl, he expects an argument.

If he didn’t feel as though his body is being sat upon by a temple statue, he might be inclined to give him one. As it is, the symptoms of a hard fought battle and aether exhaustion are undeniable.

Sleep claims him soon after the healer takes his leave. When he wakes again, the sun has fallen low enough to cast long shadows in their room, and Lyse is sitting up, carefully sipping on a bowl of soup.

“There’s some for you on the table. It should still be warm,” Lyse says softly. She moves gingerly, and her right hand, the hand that shattered the mask, is heavily bandaged. The bowl shakes as she lowers it, making him wonder if she is _supposed_ to be eating without assistance. Knowing her, likely not.

“If I had known fighting _Zenos_ is all it would take to get us some peace and quiet, I may have been more eager to face him in battle.” The joke is in poor taste, but Lyse laughs softly, so he considers it a victory.

“Speak for yourself,” she says, nose scrunching in distaste. “I’ve already had three lieutenants in here to check on my status and give me updates. The line is holding for now, and our Warrior of Light was spirited away to Ishgard to recuperate.” There is a note of confusion at the last fact; one he shares. Ishgard is a long ways from Ala Mhigo. Did they think the recently liberated city to be unsafe? Or did Aymeric not trust the local medics with the health of the Warrior he is -rather obviously- infatuated with?

Well. The Warrior of Light has ever been a mysterious one. What is one more mystery? Shrugging, he decides to sample the soup that has been left for him. It is as warm as promised, and he is pleased to note the chunks of soft meat. Ala Mhigan food has proven to be saltier than he prefers as a whole, but they certainly know how to cook their meat. A good meal makes the distance home seem much shorter.

He waits for Lyse to finish her meal and fall back against her sheets before asking casually, “Why did you do it?”

_Why did you take my place?_

_Why did you try and sacrifice yourself?_

Lyse sighs, covering her eyes with her arm and sagging from the weight of her troubles. He isn’t entirely sure why he bothered to ask; he knows the answer before she gives it. “You’re a king, Hien, and I’m a commander.”

 _You’re irreplaceable, and anyone can take_ my _place._

_You’re needed and I’m not._

_You’re_ worth something _, and I’m nothing in comparison._

It isn’t an answer her cares for.

It isn’t an answer that is _wrong_ , in many ways.

How many have given their lives for his sake already? How many more will do so in the future? It is the burden of leadership to watch his subjects fall for his name, but for Lyse, a friend and hero of Doma, to do so is uniquely painful. Was it the same for her? The fear of watching yet another friend fall for her sake? She spoke little of the mentor that gave his life before Doma's liberation, and less of the incident that saw Y'shtola Rhul bedridden, save for the fact that her friend took a near mortal blow for her sake. To watch another friend fall before her, after all that has happened to the Scions, would have been too much for a person who cares as ferociously as Lyse does.

“If we couldn’t have survived that, then what would it have mattered? Or so I kept asking myself,” she continues, oblivious to his internal thoughts.. “...And we nearly didn’t.”

He thinks of the burst of magic that ended their desperate attempt to buy time. How frustrating, that they weren’t considered worthy adversaries yet again.

“My friends are incapacitated, and the Warrior of Light will soon travel on as always.” There is more than a little truth to that statement. They all can sense that whatever has taken the Scions, whatever calls at the Warrior of Light, it will lead to somewhere beyond Eorzea and Doma. They are but stops on the path of the story that their friend travels.

The arm raises and sea-blue eyes pin him with a ferocity that surprises and pleases him. “We can’t keep waiting for heroes to come save us, Hien. I hate to say it, because those are my _friends_ , but the way things are looking, there won’t be any left to.”

Waiting for a hero, she says. Waiting for the Warrior of Light and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. He owed everything to them, as did all of Eorzea.

But have they become a crutch?

He recalls his last battle, recalls thinking of nothing but surviving until the Warrior of Light arrived to fight in his place. It was only fitting, when their opponent was Zenos himself. Yet he cannot help the lingering shame in his weakness. In his inability to protect his friends without help. Where would Doma be, had the Warrior of Light not fought at the Nadaam, had Alphinaud -a _child_ \- not created a plan for the final battle? Their appearance in Doma may have been the will of the gods, but Lyse speaks true; they can ill afford to fight as though their hero will arrive in the midst of battle.

“No. No more waiting,” he agrees firmly. Not as he did for the Warrior of Light, the Scions, his people to make a decision, and his father to make _his_ move.

Lyse, understanding all he leaves unsaid, smirks and holds out her uninjured arm. He grabs her forearm without hesitation, impressed by - _i_ _nspired by_ \- her spirit.

It’s a deal and a promise. They shall be their own heroes, now.


End file.
